Conflict Management

Conflicts are inevitable when number of people will be working together. Conflict is defined
as “difference in opinion or some kind of disagreement between two or more parties”.
Conflicts need to be resolved effectively. It is not only important to resolve the conflict, but
also is equally important to ensure that the parties involved in conflict do not unnecessarily
end up being in any kind of emotional stress during the resolution process of the conflict.
Striking a balance between resolving the conflict to find the decision and maintaining the
emotional wellbeing of people involved will be critical to successful conflict management.

Hence it is important to understand clearly, what is a conflict, why conflict occurs, challenges
in resolving conflicts and various methods for resolving conflicts.

There are two views on conflicts or the so called differences in opinion between people. The
traditional view says “conflicts are bad and should be totally discouraged”, and the new
modern view says” conflicts can be constructive and good and different ways of thinking
should be encouraged to get multiple ideas and solutions to problems in hand”.

Let us approach conflict management with the idea that conflicts can be good for the team.
So for effective conflict management, there is a need for creating a right atmosphere which
empowers people to think originally and encourages them to put forth their suggestions and
opinions without fear. And the members are encouraged to resolve conflicts among
themselves with a very open and collaborative mind. People need to rise above their personal
emotions while resolving conflicts and they need to think about the final goals of the project
or work in hand. A manager should intervene in resolving a conflict when the involved team
members will not be able to resolve on their own.

Some of the sources of conflict include disagreements on schedules, cost, priorities, technical
opinions, resources, administrative procedures and personality. Personality related conflicts
should completely be discouraged.

Some of the conflict resolution techniques are as follows:

1. Problem Solving / Collaboration / Confronting

In this method, people involved in the conflict or having a difference in opinion, they come
forward to discuss the problem at hand with a very open mind. They focus on resolving the
conflict and finding the best alternative/solution for the team. They discuss by rising above
personal emotions with the sole intention to finding what is best for the team. This leads to a
win-win kind of an outcome. Here everyone collaborates.

2. Compromising/Reconciling

Sometimes for certain conflicts, there will be a need for the involved parties to think of a
middle path wherein both parties decide to give up something and identify a resolution. This
kind of solution will be temporary for that moment and are not long lasting solution. This
leads to lose-lose kind of an outcome as both parties may feel they have lost something.

3. Withdrawing/Avoiding
In some situation one of the parties in the conflict may decide to retract from the discussion
and allows going with the other person’s opinion. Or some situation, one of the parties may
decide to completely avoid the conflict by maintaining silence. This works well in situation
where one of the parties in the conflict is emotionally charged up or is angry. Hence avoiding
any conflict resolution provides a “cooling off” period to the people involved so that they can
later come back for meaningful resolution.

4. Forcing/Competing

In some situations, a person with authority and power can force his/her opinion and resolves
the conflict without giving any chance to the other party/person. This leads to a win-lose kind
of an outcome. Someone may end up feeling as a loser while the other person with authority
may feel as a winner. This technique can be used if we see the conflicts are unnecessary and
mostly destructive for the team.

5. Smoothing/Accommodating

This is a technique which is used when the atmosphere seems to be filled with
apprehension/distrust among the parties involved. And no one is coming forward for
resolving the conflict. In these kind of scenarios, one of the parties can take charge and tries
to smooth the surrounding by using nice words and by emphasizing on the points of
agreements and playing down on the points of disagreements. This can work as catalyst to
break the discomfort between the involved parties by creating a feeling of trust and
encourages them to come forward and resolve the conflict.

The great thing about the Thomas Kilmann model is that it states that conflict handling
modes are developable, and so not fixed. Through awareness and focus it is a dynamic and
flexible model.